Saturday, September 29, 2012

Being in the field of Medicine for quite some time now, I
have been witness to countless examples of people in distress. Be it a patient
in a hospital or someone known, I have been able to relate their pain to the
obvious or most probable cause according to medical knowledge.

A few weeks back, my uncle (Dad’s younger brother) called me
up to consult me about the ill health of his sister-in-law. Being a lady in her
seventh decade of life, she was admitted to a hospital due to severe weakness
after an episode of viral infection. As her blood investigations revealed, she
was severely anemic and thus had to be transfused with blood. They being rather
unaware of medical details and being in another town, my uncle regularly used
to update and consult me about her health and the treatment she was receiving.

One day, as the lady complained of abdominal pain while
still at the hospital, the doctor in charge ordered for an ultrasound. And to
everyone’s shock, the ultrasound suggested it to be a case of liver cancer which
was confirmed by a subsequent CT scan. On consultation, even the oncologist
confirmed the cancer to be in the fourth stage and declared his helplessness to
consider any sort of curative treatment any further. Hence, she was taken back
home by the family after giving up all hope of her getting any further
treatment at the hospital.

Though her condition continued to deteriorate by each
passing day, the family members tried out all sorts of medication they could
possibly get their hands on. Meanwhile, my uncle kept me updated of any and
every minor complication the lady used to develop.

Just the other day, when my uncle called me up late in the
afternoon, he told me how she had developed severe swelling all over the body,
specially around her face and that she was in severe distress being rather dis-oriented mentally. He said the doctor had come to check on her and ordered
some investigations. I told him to inform me about the results of the
investigations as soon as they arrived.

In the evening, when my uncle called up again and started to
read out the investigation reports, I was already anticipating severe derangement in them. But I was surprised to hear that each and every aspect of
her blood and urine investigations were not only within normal limits, but were
almost the ideal values that a healthy human is expected to have.

For example, her SGPT (a liver enzyme) which has a normal
range of 5-38 units per litre was found to be 20. While without doubt, a case
of liver cancer is sure to have this value in several hundreds. Likewise, her
serum creatinine was stated to be 0.62 (normal range 0.5-1.0) which was highly
unlikely seeing the bad state of her kidneys. Similarly, all the other blood
values and electrolytes were stated to be the ideal values.

On a reflex, I told my uncle that the lab had simply not
done the tests. I asked him to get it done again from some other lab
immediately. By midnight, I got a call from him once again informing me that
they had got the investigations done again from another reputed lab but the
results were still the same. Though they had also sent for the investigations
from a nationally reputed lab whose results were expected by the morning.

It was beyond my understanding as to how all investigations
of such a critically ill patient could be not just within the acceptable
limits, but also be almost the ideal values. Though it was an extremely low
probability, but could two labs commit gross errors in their reports at the
same time ?

I was woken by my uncle’s call early next morning. And he
gave me the most unfortunate news that the old lady had passed away in her
sleep. Before he ended the call, he informed me that the third report had just
been received and it had nothing different than the first two.

Though this was completely against medical logic, but if one
was to believe the reports, everything inside the lady’s body (at least in her
blood) was as perfect as it could be.

This incident has made me wonder whether everything does
become perfect at the end. As if all the cells in a person’s body are at
complete peace with themselves and with one another just before the end. As if
the body is in the final preparation of the eternal peace of the soul.

I don’t really know. It still defies any medical logic. But
as I ponder over this I can’t help but remember the title thought on the blog
of a blog-friend Preethika….